Volcano explosion didn't cause Earth to go into 'deep freeze' 74,000 years ago

Washington, July 9 (ANI): A new study has discounted a theory which suggested that when a giant volcano on Sumatra blew its top 74,000 years ago, the Earth went into deep freeze, cooling the climate by at least 10 degrees Celsius.

The volcano, named Toba, may have ejected 1000 times more rock and other material than Mount St. Helens in Washington state did in 1980. In the process, it cooled the climate by at least 10 degrees C, causing a global famine.

Giant volcanic eruptions such as Toba briefly cause the opposite of global warming. Although eruptions do emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, volcanoes also spew sulfur dioxide.

Combined with water vapor, sulfur dioxide forms sulfate aerosols, which can spread around the globe, blocking solar radiation and chilling the air before becoming acid rain and snow.

Paleoclimate evidence suggests that the Toba eruption, which occurred during the last ice age, emitted lots of sulfur dioxide - vastly more than Mount St. Helens did.

The eruption also seems to have coincided with the start of a 1000-year period of even colder temperatures.

Some scientists have suggested that Toba caused the deep freeze and that perhaps such an event happening today could bring on a new ice age.

But, models developed by NASA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, argue otherwise.

Researchers led by climatologist Alan Robock of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, ran scenarios that featured eruptions producing up to several times more sulfur dioxide than Toba.

The result was a cooler climate that lasted only a few decades.

So, the 1000-year cold spell was probably part of the natural cycle that has produced more than a dozen ice ages over the past couple of million years.

"The results virtually eliminate mega volcanic eruptions as one of the key drivers of global-scale glaciation," said climatologist Ellen Mosley-Thompson of Ohio State University in Columbus.

"So, paleoclimatologists should focus on more likely climate coolers, such as changes in ocean circulation or cyclical variations in Earth's orbit around the sun," she said.(ANI)